Fight Government Secrecy and Reform the State Secrets Privilege
This is is an archived action alert, meaning that it is no longer relevant or worth acting on. It's listed here for reference only.
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Tell Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee to support the State Secrets Protection Act of 2009, a bill designed to curb abuse of the state secrets privilege. The government has used the overbroad privilege to get lawsuits thrown out of court before they have even begun, based merely on the claim that letting courts judge the legality of those programs would endanger national security. The bill would make changes to ensure meaningful judicial oversight and is likely to be marked up soon in an upcoming Senate Judiciary Committee meeting. Your support in the fight against government secrecy is needed now more than ever -- tell the committee to support state secrets privilege reform today!
This week presents another opportunity to begin to curb ongoing abuse of government power.
For years, the state secrets privilege was a favorite tool of the Bush Administration. They used it to avoid accountability for both the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program and the CIA's "special rendition" program. The Justice Department has used the privilege to get lawsuits thrown out of court before they have even begun, based merely on the claim that letting courts judge the legality of those programs would endanger national security.
Recently, the Obama Administration has begun to use the same tactic -- most notably, to attempt to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, EFF's ongoing lawsuit against the NSA for warrantless wiretapping. Yet, even President Obama himself recently admitted that the state secrets privilege is "overbroad" and a "blunt instrument" that needs to be reformed.
In light of this continuing abuse, members of Congress have introduced bills to ensure meaningful judicial oversight of state secrets claims.
The Senate version of the bill (S. 417, the State Secrets Protection Act of 2009), sponsored by Senators Leahy, Specter, Feingold and Kennedy, will likely be facing a critical vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee any day now. Your support could be the deciding factor!
Check below to see if one of your Senators is on that committee. If they are, please stand up against overreaching government secrecy and send a message to your Senator today to voice your strong support for S. 417, the State Secrets Protection Act of 2009.
If you live in any of the following states, you will be able to send a message to a senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee:
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